The Death of One of the Four Guardian Kings of Tokugawa
by MorningEmerald
Summary: While on the battlefield, Ina gets ambushed by countless soldiers, causing Tadakatsu to come and save her. But in the process, he gets badly wounded, and soon dies. Now, Ina is left to cope with the fact that she may have been the cause of his death. Will she give into despair, or find new hope to live? Read to find out! Slight Ina x Hanzo if you squint. Also better than it sounds.


Ina sat by her father's bedside, a candle dimly lit the dark room; illuminating his face as beads of sweat dripped down from his forehead to his pillow. The sound of his labored breathing filled the room along with the pattering of the rain outside. Thunder rumbled in the distance, lightning streaking across the sky. Ina glanced at her father's face, his eyebrows were deeply furrowed, gathering drops of sweat that ran down his forehead. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was open, gasping for any air it could find.

She let her gaze travel to his body, covered in blankets in an attempt to keep him warm. But she knew what was underneath; his torso was covered in blood-stained bandages, meant to cover up the various wounds that had come from him being stabbed with swords, the blades of spears, and the points of arrowheads. The weapons had punctured his armor, penetrated his flesh and made their way into his body. The herbalists had said that his wounds were severe and that he didn't have much time to live. Ina closed her eyes, remembering yet again the ambush that had caused this in the first place.

* * *

Ina ran along a trail in the forest with her unit of archers, trying to reach the allied garrison in the distance. Then they would climb up to pick off the enemy messengers to keep them from getting reinforcements. If they could, she and her archers would also eliminate the enemy archer units to lower allied casualties. She and her unit kept running, determined to reach their destination. Ina had barely jumped over a log when a conch horn was blown, causing streams of soldiers to start pouring out from the trees, quickly surrounding them.

Ina and her archers stepped back, forming a tight-knit circle. Their bows were pointed at the enemy, ready to fire. Ina gritted her teeth, scanning her surroundings. The enemy soldiers around them seemed endless, and it appeared that they had more lying in wait. At the most, she had about 2 archer units, which meant 10 archers in total. But unlike her, they were meant to fight from a distance, not in close quarters. Looking around, she saw an opening in the enemy's ranks.

She had only one option left.

Taking a deep breath, Ina yelled out the one word she hated the most,

"Retreat!"

Immediately her archers broke the formation and began fleeing to the nearest reserve base. But unfortunately, the enemy wasn't willing to let them go so easily. With a loud war cry, the enemy foot soldiers ran forward, their weapons raised. They began to pursue her fleeing archers, slashing at them so that they would fall, then hacking at their fallen bodies, brutally murdering them. The archers didn't have time to plead for their life, or beg for mercy, they were simply killed; right there and then.

One of her most trusted archers, Syo, had been running beside her, before he tripped on a low branch and met the fate of his comrades. Horrified at his cruel demise, Ina had nearly fallen herself, before a sword had ripped through part of her skirt; barely missing flesh. Reminded of her current situation, Ina continued to run toward the gap in the enemy's ranks, slicing and firing arrows at her enemies along the way.

She had just managed to reach the gap and was now in the midst of the foot soldiers. Ina began slashing at the enemy soldiers with her bow and firing arrows more frantically than ever, determined to escape.

That was the precise moment her quiver had chosen to run out of arrows.

When her fingers closed around empty air, Ina was nearly driven to the verge of panic. She was about to surrender before an ice-cold raindrop landed on her nose. The cold was enough to shock her back into reality, just in time for Ina to dodge a spear thrusting towards her abdomen. She swung her bow in a circle arc, slicing through the soldiers around her; giving her enough time to run through the rest of the gap, away from the enemy's ranks.

Panting, Ina slowed her pace a bit to catch her breath and rest her aching legs.

It was a grave mistake.

The enemy came upon her like a tsunami, engulfing her in its waves of soldiers, set on defeating her. The nearest soldiers began swinging their swords and spears at her, before their blades would be met by those on her bow with a well-timed counterattack, resulting in a _clang. _So far Ina had successfully countered most of the incoming attacks, but her arms were tiring, her legs were aching, and a few lucky soldiers had cut through some of her armor, leaving minor flesh wounds.

Suddenly, her legs began wobbling, then just stopped working altogether, causing Ina to collapse on the ground; dropping her bow.

_Not... yet! I can't fall yet! I just can't ...!_

Her vision blurred as rain pelted down on her, soaking her clothes and staining them with mud. The enemy started to move towards her, some of them holding ropes in their hands to tie her up. Ina tried to make her body stand up, to make it move at all... but it didn't work. The corners of her vision started to turn black, her eyelids were slowly closing. She could barely register the feeling of the rain pelting against her skin, the mud seeping through her clothes, or the blood from both allies and enemies running down her body into the mud.

Slowly, her body started going numb from the cold of the rain. The numbness first entered through the tips of her toes, then started traveling up to her legs, until it took complete control of her lower body. Then the loss of feeling spread through her torso, and finally reached her fingertips. The enemy had barely surrounded her now, and was starting to close in. Ina had almost closed her eyes when she heard a yell from what sounded like miles away.

"INA!"

_Fa... ther ...?_

The familiar voice had barely reached Ina from inside her daze, and the next thing she knew she was being swept up onto the back of a horse and carried away from the battlefield. The scowl of disapproval and frustration on an enemy general's face was the last thing she saw before she blacked out.

* * *

She had not been able to remember anything before her father had lifted her up onto his horse and took her away. Her guess was that he had defeated most of the enemy soldiers surrounding her, but had been unable to dodge or deflect all of their attacks, and suffered many wounds in the process. Of course, if she believed that to be true, then that would mean that she had been the cause of his deadly wounds, and had led him to the path of death; where he was now heading.

Ina looked at Tadakatsu, the man that was her father, and also the man that was known as the strongest warrior in the land. Now on the verge of death, _how could this happen?_ She thought to herself, to her, he was invincible. If he was going to die, she had always assumed it would be on a battlefield, not in a bed, not like this.

It was only when she felt something wet splash onto her hand that she realized she was crying. Ina slowly lifted her hand up to her face, gently wiping off the tears. She winced as she brought her arm back down, the wounds on it were starting to open up again.

The pattering of the rain grew harder, the raindrops sounding as if they were slamming themselves against the rooftop. The candle flame flickered wildly, making for an unstable lighting in the room as the flame crackled on the wick of the candle.

It was then that Ina realized that the pattering of the rain or the crackling of the flame had not become louder, but that a certain noise in the room had gone completely quiet.

The sound of her father's breathing.

The realization hit Ina like a blow to the abdomen, knocking all of the air out of her lungs before her hands landed on the floor, holding her body up while she gasped for breath. Newly formed tears started to pop up in her already puffy eyes as she struggled to regain the oxygen that her body had lost.

After a while of coughing and hacking along with gasping, she finally managed to turn her breathing back to normal again. Returning to her original sitting position, she shakily reached out her left hand and lightly pressed down on the side of Tadakatsu's neck.

There was no pulse.

Ina froze in place, her body as still as a statue. Her mind was unable to form thoughts, much less able to acknowledge the fact that her father had just died. She was in a state of shock, unmoving as time passed with her hand on his neck. The muscle-hardened flesh had lost its warmth, rapidly getting colder as heat left the dead body.

When Tadakatsu's body turned ice-cold, Ina snapped out of her trance; noticing the lack of warmth. With shocked and sad eyes she turned to look at his face, his eyebrows had slackened, giving his face a tranquil look. It almost looked as if he was simply in a deep sleep, as if he was still breathing;

As if he were still alive.

That was when she broke down and started crying; tears streaking down her cheeks and forming a puddle on the floor. Ina tried to fight it, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not stop the endless flow of tears. For what seemed like eternity, she sat there silently weeping; wishing that she had never fallen into that ambush, wishing that she could have made it out on her own, wishing that Tadakatsu could have been saved.

Ina replayed the events of the ambush again and again in her mind, reflecting on how she could have changed the events. That moment, she remembered the last thing she had seen before blacking out on her father's horse-

The scowl of the enemy general; full of disapproval and frustration.

Suddenly, it all clicked into place; Ina's lips twisted into a sad smile, she finally understood the reason for her ambush. Why they were so determined to catch her and spare no one. They hadn't been aiming for her, they had been aiming for her father all along; one of the Four Guardian Kings of Tokugawa.*

Tadakatsu Honda.

She had been the bait for the trap. If their child was need of rescue, what would their parent do? Either run away or save them. But only a weak person would choose the former, and her father had not been weak; not at all. He had been the strongest of the strong, but even the strongest of the strong can fall.

"It seems that you have regained control of your feelings."

Ina jumped when she heard the emotionless voice, the door slid open, revealing a darkly-clad figure.

"Hanzo?"

The masked shinobi stepped out from the shadows in the doorway, "Lord Ieyasu sent me to keep an eye on Lord Tadakatsu's condition. If you will excuse me, I shall now go back to give my report." With that sentence, he vanished, leaving behind a single shiragiku (white chrysanthemum*) and a pair of suisens (daffodils*) to float down onto the ground in front of her.

For a moment Ina was confused, why had he left behind a shiragiku and a pair of suisens? Gingerly, she picked up the two flowers, holding them in her hands as she inspected them. The shiragiku's thin white petals sifted through her fingers, soft and a bit cold to the touch. The suisens looked alike, but were slightly different. They both had white petals on the outside, hiding the yellow petals on the inside. Something pale yellow, long, and thin was sticking out from the center, was it called the stigma? She couldn't remember.

"A shiragiku... and two suisens...?" Ina murmured to herself. Why had he given her only one shiragiku, when he had given her two suisens? She had started to ponder the question when the door slid open yet again, this time by a messenger.

"Lady Ina, Lord Ieyasu requests your presence in his quarters immediately!" He said, giving a quick bow beforehand. Ina snapped out of her thoughts, setting down the flowers and standing up to dismiss the messenger.

"I understand, you are dismissed." She calmly said, unlike her current appearance at the moment.

"Yes, ma'am!" The messenger bowed in respect before closing the door and leaving.

Ina left her father's quarters and began walking down to her Lord's room. When she arrived, she gave a short bow before he talked to her about what she had been expecting, funeral preparations.

* * *

A few days after the funeral, Ina sat in her room, still holding the flowers that Hanzo had given her. By now she had understood the reason for them, and set out to make use of them.

Getting her horse, Mochizuki, from the stables she rode out past the castle gates to a hill in the distance. On top of the hill was her father's Tonbo-Giri, stuck into the ground. It hadn't been where her father had been buried, of course, but where Ina had remembered him best. And where he had sat many times, drinking sake after a successful battle, or sitting up here after a defeat, simply thinking.

Ina dismounted her horse, and walked up to the Tonbo-Giri, two flowers in her hand. She gently set down the shiragiku and a suisen by the Tonbo-Giri, blinking away moisture from her eyes as she did so. The other suisen she had planted in the soil by her quarters in the castle. Ina stood back up, her ponytail being blown back by a cool breeze. She looked up into the clouds, as if her father were there, watching her.

_Father, please watch me! I, Ina, shall carry on your legacy, and serve the Tokugawa with all my might. So, until the day I join you, please watch over me!_

For a moment, Ina could have sworn that the clouds distorted into the face of her father, a proud smile on his face. Until a bird cawed in the distance, breaking the illusion. Tears slipped through her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, dripping off her chin and down onto the ground. Sniffling, Ina wiped them off, and instead broke into a smile, knowing that somewhere, her father was watching over her.

And he was proud.

Mounting her horse, Ina began the long ride back to the castle.

* * *

*1: According to Koei Wikia, Tadakatsu was one of the Four Guardian Kings of Tokugawa and was one of his honorary titles.

*2 & 3: The shiragiku (white chrysanthemum) is a flower commonly used for funerals in Japan. In Japan, it means death or grief. The suisen (daffodil) is a flower used to show respect. So basically, Hanzo was saying to Ina that he showed grief for Tadakatsu and respect for both Ina and well, Tadakatsu.

I hope you enjoyed this fanfic, I'm sorry that the ending was a bit rushed, and that the characters may have been a little OOC, but my mom was in firebreathing-dragon-GET-YOUR-ANUS-OFF-THAT-LAPTOP-THIS-INSTANT mode. I'll do a rewrite soon of what this was originally supposed to be. Thanks for reading!


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